


Heart of Steel

by Ford_Ye_Fiji



Series: Cigarettes and Miniguns [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Brotherhood of Steel - Freeform, Disagreements, F/M, Gen, I need a sass option for when Danse insults Nick, My First Work in This Fandom, Nick needs a Hug, Please be gentle, This can be read as gen, for when anyone insults nick, theres very slight romance but it feels gen, yelling at them in my head just isn't cutting it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 08:36:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9226940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ford_Ye_Fiji/pseuds/Ford_Ye_Fiji
Summary: Nora looked at the synth, her brows furrowing, "You know, you're not half bad for a synth."He shot back, "You're not half bad for a member of the Brotherhood of Steel."~In which the female Sole Survivor joins the Brotherhood of Steel early on and it's up to Nick Valentine to show her that not all synths and ghouls are monsters to be killed.





	1. The First Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> The chapters should get longer. Hopefully. This is kind of just setting the mood.
> 
> I'll put chapter two out on Sunday to make up for the tininess.

The first time he met Knight Nora, he's thinks he's going to be killed.

Nick stands in the room in the back of Vault 114, waiting for Malone to come. Then the Knight marches up in that suit of armor, heavy footsteps shaking the floor... the power armor the Brotherhood of Steel were famous for. The very same people who thought that he, ghouls, and all his kind were abominations. He's got a sinking feeling that they're not here to rescue him.

He watches the warrior approach. He can still see the blood of the ghouls who worked for Skinny Malone painting the shiny metal.

Pretty soon the Knight has opened the door, weapon drawn. They take off their helmet, and shoulder length fiery hair spills out. The woman scans the room and frowns, bright lips twitching down in scorn at the sight of his destroyed skin and exposed machinery.

The first words out of her mouth have a tinge of disgust to them, "You're a _synth_?!"

Nick isn't surprised by her attitude. He doesn't answer immediately, instead he pulls out a cigarette and takes his time lighting it and taking a long drag before responding, "I'd noticed."

The woman half scowls, "Are you Nick Valentine, synth?" Her condescending tone makes him want to return fire. Figuratively. It probably wasn't the wisest thing to sass her considering that she could kill him in a shot from her fancy laser rifle... What could he lose though?

"Synth _Detective_ if you please, doll."

She scowls, "Great," and he knows that she means the exact opposite.

He takes another drag, watching in mild amusement as she watches incredulously as the smoke puffs out through the tears in his neck, "Anything you need in particular, oh Knight in shining armor?"

She frowned and replaced the helmet, her pleasant voice now emitting through the suit, "Stay behind me, _Synth_ Detective. Don't get in my way."

She stomped out, the room shaking.

Nick followed, only stopping to take a rifle from a dead ghoul. The fiery woman runs ahead and up the stairs, guns already blazing.

What had he gotten into? 


	2. The Second Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick and the Knight meet again. 
> 
> Things are a little less chilly and just as sarcastic.

The second time he met Knight Nora, was a complete accident.

He'd been trapped in a tight place, mostly because he'd been on a case looking for yet another missing person. He'd solved that first problem, they were meat for super mutants. The second problem was the super mutants.

Now, they weren't so bad. Mostly because they'd been killed, which was the third problem.

The super mutants had been slaughtered and left in bloody pieces by a Deathclaw.

A Deathclaw with two lovely friends who were also Deathclaws.

He probably should've listened to Ellie about finding a partner, but there had been no likely candidates. He couldn't just stop his work because he didn't have someone watching his back.

Nick regretted that thought process now.

The Deathclaw had burst out of the ground inches in front of him, wide jaws dripping with glowing saliva. He'd immediately done the only thing that could be done in a situation involving Deathclaws.

Nick ran away.

Well, he'd tried to run, but Deathclaws are significantly faster than old rust buckets.

A long scaly hand, tipped with foot long claws had lashed out and smacked against his side. He'd flown into a building in exactly the way that bricks shouldn't.

Fortunately, the painful hit was actually a magnificent stroke of luck. He'd been tossed onto one of the high platforms the super mutants had built before their demise. The platform was high enough that the Deathclaw couldn't reach him. When the cursed creature realized that it's prey was gone, it elected to pace around the square in agitation and roar periodically. Nick lay there for a bit, trying to catch his breath as much as a Synth could. Then he stood back up, with a rather loud groaning noise, and fired on the angry animal.

He did manage to kill it, but then found that he'd run out of ammo because one couldn't really kill a Deathclaw with only a 10mm without using up scads of ammunition. If he'd known there was a Deathclaw, he would've brought something with a bit more kick.

Then two very mad Deathclaw friends showed up and he knew that he probably wasn't going to get out of this alive.   
Until the Vertibird flew over head and a Knight fell from it, a familiar laser rifle firing upon the howling creatures. She made quick work of them, leaving only glowing ashes.

Nick probably could've walked away without her knowing, but that wasn't really his style. Instead he shouted down into the bricked intersection, "The brave Knight returns again, eh, doll? Ya gotta love the reverse damsel in distress scenario."

She whirls and fires at where his head used to be. Nick would be glowing ashes himself if he hadn't had such inhuman reflexes and the good sense to duck. He poked his head over the rail again, a frown painting his features, "That was a bit of a chilly reception."

The woman scoffed, "What are you doing here?"

"My job."

She huffed and turned, thumping away. Nick scrambles down the tall rusty ladder and follows quickly with a, "Hey, wait a minute!"

She pauses next to a crumbling police station and looks out over a chasm that descends into a thick smog. The Sentinel had taken off her helmet and she turned at the sound of his footsteps, "What do you want, synth detective?"

Huh. At least she remembered the detective part.

"I just wanted to know your name, doll. It's not everyday you meet a member of the Brotherhood who doesn't kill you on sight, let alone one who's rescued you twice."

"Once. The second time was an accident."

He shrugged, "Well... Here, let's start again. I'm Nick Valentine, the private detective of Diamond City."

He held out his hand for a shake. The ginger did not shake it, all she did was frown. He followed her gaze to his bare and tarnished metal fingers glinting in the sun, "Oh, sorry." Nick was used to hesitation by now. He held out his other more human looking hand, carefully curling his metal fingers out of his sight under his sleeve.

The woman towered over him in her power armor, but she allowed a small smirk and shook it even though she handled it like she was shaking the hand of a super mutant. He pretended not to see her nose wrinkle in slight disgust as she gave him her name, "Knight Nora, Brotherhood of Steel."

"There, doll. Was that so bad?"

"I'm going to have to take a shower."

"Is that a regulation for all those in the Brotherhood? Anytime you touch a mutant or a monster, you are unclean and are required to cleanse yourself from our 'contagions'."

She replied to his quip drily, "Spot on, Detective." Her scarlet lips were quirked upwards, though, in slight amusement at his sarcastic remark.

Something told him, that once he got past her propaganda, they were going to get along wonderfully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I went with the name Nora because well, see I have a competition with some people I know to come up with silly names. I didn't think you guys would be able to take this story very seriously if our female Sole Survivor was called Slartibartfast. 
> 
> Also, the Deathclaw situation actually happened to me. Except that I didn't bring a 10mm, I had the Rightous Authority at the time.


	3. The Third Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People begin to open up... It gets angsty. 
> 
> Also, spoilers for a little of Nick's backstory. Nothing about his personal quest, though.

"We've got to stop meeting like this, doll."

Nora ignored him and chucked a grenade at the swarm of feral ghouls climbing over the ridge like insects swarming over a rotting bloated corpse.

He fired at the approaching foul creatures, taking out several with a few well placed shots.

The duo did manage to pick off most of the zombie-like monsters before they got close enough to bite. The few that did get in close were punched with the butt of the laser rifle into oblivion.

When Nora finished scavenging the last of the bodies, she turned and collapsed against a fallen dead tree. Nick frowned, "They smell even worse dead. I didn't think that was possible."

The woman stifled a hysterical giggle. She was tired and this was supposed to be a quick trip, grabbing some supplies to fix up her damaged power armor. Instead, she'd ended up having to go up against horde after horde of ghouls, the last one being where she'd found the synth in a spot of trouble.

The synth gave her a sideways look, "You alright there, doll?"

"Tired."

The synth offered a cigarette and well, why not? She took a long drag after he lit it with his rusted lighter. He took her silence to remark, "So you're a vault dweller then?"

Nora was confused, until she remembered that this was the first time he'd seen her without power armor. "Yes, Vault 111... A lot to get used to out here," she sighed and looked up at him, "I miss pizza."

"Especially the ones topped with garlic and white sauce."

Nora closed her eyes and leaned her head back, "Hot enough that the cheese is melting-"

"And the grease just sticks to your fingers."

There was a moment of silence until Nora sat up, "Wait, how do you remember pizza?" Nick's yellow optics blink twice before he looks guiltily away, "Well..."

She waits patiently before he meets her eyes again. The synth sighs, sits down on the edge of the log and begins, "See... Before the war, before the bombs fell and everything became the radioactive hell it is now, there was a private detective named Nick Valentine. Somewhere along the line, He got his brain scanned at C.I.T. Many years later the Institute plugged his memories and personality into a gen-2 synth. That's how you get me. Of course, then they decided they didn't really need me anymore and they..." He made a gesture with his fingers, "They took out the trash."

She blinks, "That's awful."

Nick shrugs, "I've lived with it for a long time, doll."

Nora looks out over the plain, "Vault-Tec cryogenically froze us without our knowledge. I woke up two hundred years later to find that my son had been stolen, my husband had been murdered, and the world was a nuclear wasteland. I've been looking for him... My son, Shaun, ever since."

Nick whistled, "That's a real doozy. It even beats mine."

She sighed, "Well, this is a competition I'd rather not have won."

"I'm sure, somewhere, another poor sap has a backstory that's even worse. Everybody learns to live with hell, here in the Commonwealth."

Nora looked at the synth, her brows furrowing, "You know, you're not half bad for a synth."

"You're not half bad for a member of the Brotherhood of Steel."

There's a pause before Nick speaks again, "You know... I am a detective."

"I know. You've informed me."

He can practically taste her sarcasm, "I meant, I could help you find your kid. I might know something about who took him. Or why."

She chews on this piece of information for a moment before she says, "Maybe."

Another peaceful moment passes before she continues, "But who would take him?" Her voice cracks and Nick pretends not to notice for her sake, "Who would take my baby?"

His voice is dead serious when he replies sadly, "I can think of a lot of people, doll."

Nora lets the smoke out from between her ruby lips and watches it unfurl in the untarnished golden light of the setting sun, "The planet is a real mess, isn't it detective."

It's not a question.

Nick answers, only half registering she has not called him a synth in the sentence, "It's grown a lot since the panic after the bombs fell. It's certainly not a perfect world, but we're surviving. I expect in a few hundred years, we'll be doing more than that."

"You really think so?"

"One can hope."

Nora looked at him, his yellow optics glowing brightly reminding her that she wasn't talking to a fellow human, "I like this hope you've got." She looked out over the dead ghouls and the wreckage of Earth, "It's all we have now."

Nick murmurs in agreement as the sun slowly sets over the synth, the woman, and the battered tired world of man.


	4. The Fourth Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick and Nora meet again... 
> 
> One should've known their differences of opinion wouldn't stay unspoken for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, I have no idea if the caravan thing actually happened, but sorry Brotherhood, I can see you doing that...

The fourth time Nick Valentine met Nora, she was glad to see him.

Nick crouches by the door of the superstore, listening to the raiders cuss violently inside. He knows they're talking about a woman making trouble for them, though it might be a man. They're colorful language was interchangeable with both genders... Though a female dog they usually reserved for particularly stubborn gals.

Apparently they've got the poor daring soul pinned down in the square. One of them scoffed, "It won't last. When we send Jared down with his power armor we'll see-" the rest of the raider's sentence descended into curses with murmurs of agreement from his ruthless pals. If they had their way, the fighter would be dead shortly.

Yeah, not if he has anything to say about it.

A minute and a couple 10mm rounds later, five raiders are dead on the floor and Nick has donned the clumsy suit of power armor. "I feel like I'm playing dress up," he mutters and sticks the helmet over his head. It's close and suffocating and he doesn't like it at all. He feels like a tin can inside of a tin can.

When he stomps out of the building, the raiders attacking the person crouched behind a car let out a cheer. When he starts shooting the twisted men, the ones who had impaled the unfortunate settlers on poles outside, they scramble for cover shrieking and cursing.

By the time he's finished, the person behind the car has caught on that, miraculously, they aren't going to die today. They stand up and Nick nearly laughs. It's Nora in her blue Vault 111 suit with a German Shepherd at her side.

She walks up, her worn scratched eyeglasses reflecting the sun, and she smiles- actually smiles- up at him. He highly doubts she's going to smile when she finds out she was rescued by a synth. Her voice breaks through his thoughts, "Thank you for that, though I must ask, you're not a raider are you? That would certainly be a sudden change of heart."

The gig is up. Nicks steels himself for the worst as he takes off the metal helmet, "Naw, just a hardworking private eye through and through, doll."

She's surprised, but her smile widens in a miracle even bigger than him finding her just when she needed it, "Detective! What are you doing here?"

Amusement colors his voice when he answers, "My job."

It's almost the exact same conversation they'd had after the fight with the three Deathclaws, though with a more welcoming atmosphere.

"I should've known, Valentine."

"What are _you_ doing here, Nora? And without your power armor?"

"I don't use it for _everything_. Besides, I was helping out the Minutemen. They're not doing anything the Brotherhood disagrees with and they needed some help. I was willing to lend a hand."

Nick takes a moment before answering as he exits the armor. The suit sits there as an empty shell when he replies, "That was sure nice of ya, Nora."

She doesn't object at the use of her name.

"Well, it was the least I could do Valentine, the Brotherhood defends, protects, and helps out those who are less fortunate."

He can't quite resist, "You may do that, but somehow I can't see the rest of them agreeing with ya."

Nora crossed her arms, "Just because we don't side with every synth or ghoul we come across does not mean we're ruthless killers like those raiders."

Nick shrugged, "I've got no problem with you killing synths or ferals. What I've got a problem with is exterminating any creature who isn't human, whether or not they're good people. There are exceptions, ya know."

Nora opened her mouth to reply hotly, but Nick continued his tirade, "I have seen a caravan of ghouls gunned down by the Brotherhood simply because they were ghouls and they had a slight chance of turning feral!"

She turned away, arms crossed.

A tense minute passed where the only noise in the hot dry town was the wind whistling through the bombed buildings and the two hundred year old ruins of a time long since past. The relics of that age, the last un-ghoulish remnants of a world long gone, faced each other across a gap of blind hatred.

Nick sighed and rubbed his forehead, "I shouldn't have taken that out on you."

Nora didn't reply and the gap yawned impossibly wide and overwhelmingly deep.

The bridge the synth had been trying to build seemed to be collapsing by the moment as the woman on the other side refused to meet him halfway.

"I'm sorry." He turned and walked back the way he'd came when he'd charge into the fray to rescue an unknown soul in need.

Nick missed the thoughtful look the Vault-dweller gave him as she watched him leave. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry/not sorry, guys.


	5. The Fifth Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick and Nora meet once again. 
> 
> Nora is finally persuaded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, sorry this is late? I lost wifi. 
> 
> Also, things get a bit iffy here? So... Warning: implied torture.

The fifth time Nora and Nick met, was not under pleasant circumstances at all.

She'd been informed that they had caught a synth. Nora was thrilled, maybe they'd be able to find the entrance to the Institute and perhaps Shaun. It was a possibility they had her son, considering all the people they'd kidnapped across the Commonwealth.

When she entered the room where they were keeping the thing, she greeted Scribe Ky and Knight Eva. Eva smiled at Nora as she entered.

"Ky, where's the synth?"

The thin man answered as he entered data into a computer terminal, "The containment chamber. I figured before we began extracting information from its processors I could take a look at its engineering. I was able to pull apart some of the outer shell." The man turned and waved his hands excitedly, the welding goggles pushed up on his forehead, "The complexity of the machine is amazing! I believe it is even able to feel pain!"

"But a way into the Institute, Ky?"

"Ah... Not yet. It keeps insisting it doesn't know, but you can't believe a synth."

Nora pushed away the nagging in her head that asked, 'But what about Nick? You can believe Nick, can't you?' Nick Valentine was irrelevant at the moment. Besides he was different.

Nora nodded and continued down through the door in the back of the room. She paused in horror as the steel door slid shut with a thump behind her.

She slowly walked forward until she able to put her hand on the thick cool glass of the Prdwyn separating her from the synth trapped in the room.

It's metal fingers and steel arm was trapped in a vise, plastic artificial skin pulled away from about mid forearm to its elbow. The absolute worst part of this whole picture was the synth the arm was attached too.

Nick Valentine, the synth detective who'd helped more people than she could count- including herself, was sitting in the chair looking more tired than any robot had the right to seem.

Her mouth trembled as her brows drew down. She knew the Brotherhood knew who Nick was, she'd told them of their first meeting. (Perhaps not of the ones following, but for some reason, something was holding her back from telling them.) She'd even told her superiors of the information she'd collected about the supposedly friendly synth living in Diamond City. The cases he'd solved, the people he'd saved...

It was then, here, as she looked at somethin- no, someone she considered a friend being tortured and held by the Brotherhood when he'd done no wrong other than being something else... It was here that her faith began to crack.

Nora turned and inputed the password into the terminal, as well as shutting down the cameras. The door opened and Nick looked up, yellow optics wide in defiance and perhaps fear.

When the detective saw Nora he looked relieved for a second before his eyes narrowed and his face hardened. She doesn't blame him.

She hardly acknowledges him as she passes by, only nodding slightly and saying, "Nick."

She can see him processing the small sign. She'd hoped he'd get that she was here to help- the fact that she'd called him by his name was something she'd never done before.

Nora goes to the vise around his arm and winces as she sees the peeled back skin. It might not be real, but the scarred flesh certainly looks real next to the exposed metal skeleton. A minute later, her thumb is pressed to the pad on top of the contraption.

It pops open, releasing his arm.

He opens his mouth, closes it, and then nods.

Nora feels a sudden rush of relief. He understands.

She puts a finger to her lips and then gestures for him to follow. Nick follows quietly, grabbing his fedora from where it had been placed carelessly on a desk.

The synth seems bewildered when she grabs his hand and pulls him behind a corner as a Paladin passes. She wonders why and she realizes it had been his thin metal hand. She's still holding it in fact. She hadn't even noticed.

Nora leads them down a separate hallway and eventually, after a few more close encounters with guards, they make it to a Vertibird. Nora powers it up and unbelievably, they're gone with no one the wiser as of yet.

Nora was glad he hadn't said anything, but, she knows that his silence won't last.

Nick finally asks, "Why?"

She's not surprised considering the way their last meeting went, "Because you're my friend."

Nick sits in a stunned silence as she continues, "And because you were right. Ky... Ky's a sweet guy, but... He didn't even _hesitate_... I know they knew that you were peaceful- I told them." Her hands tighten on the Vertibird's controls as she continues in an almost whisper, "He didn't even _flinch_ when he said he _peeled_ your _skin off._ "

The detective speaks softly after a slight hesitation, "The Brotherhood was your best bet to find your son, doll. They're the most advanced faction in the Commonwealth. You've just lost that chance."

Nora scoffs forcing lightness in her voice after having found her whole world shattered once again, "A very wise person once said that 'One can have hope.'" Nora finds that the lightness is easier to show all of a sudden, "Besides, I've got the best private detective in this hellhole that I can get. We'll find my son. We'll find Shaun."

Nick allows a small sheepish smile.

Somehow Nora knew that she might not be a hundred percent now and she probably wouldn't be a hundred percent tomorrow, but with a person like Nick at her side to help her through it and to find her son...

Well, what couldn't she do?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And hey! This work is part of a series now! :D I will most likely post a second installment for it this afternoon!


End file.
